Around 47,600 Americans died in 2017 of opioid overdoses. It’s the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, surpassing car accidents. What makes this crisis have such a wide reach and penetrate racial, economic, and geographic lines? Take As Directed host Steve Morrison dives into its origins of the crisis in the first episode of a special miniseries on the American opioid epidemic. Episode produced in 2018 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.